The Historical Judgment: Was Mao Zedong a Savior (Hero) or a Dictator (Emperor) of China?

A Book Review on:
The Private Life of Chairman Mao and The True Stories in History

Introduction
This review is about two books on Mao Zedong. The first one is: The Private Life of Chairman Mao, --the Memoirs of Mao’s Personal Physician. The book was written by Dr. Li Zhisui, Mao Zedong’s personal Physician. It was translated by Professor Tai Hung-chao, with the editorial assistance of Anne F. Thurston; with foreword by Professor Andrew J. Nathan. It was published by Random House in 1994. The book addressed the history of China under the ruling of Mao, told stories about Mao’s private life and the strategies he followed with his associates from 1954 until his death in 1976. In this book, through the eye’s of Doctor Li, Mao Zedong was described as an emperor, a dictator who had the absolute power to control everyone’s life and the country’s fate. The second book reviewed is: The True Stories in History—the Testimony of Mao Zedong’s Staff (Lishi De Zhenshi, Mao Zedong Shenbian Gongzuo Renyuan De Zhengyan), by Lin Ke, Xu Tao, Wu Xujun, the staff who worked close to Mao Zedong. The publisher is The CCP’s Central Documentary Publishing House. The authors were Doctor Li’s colleagues back in China at that time. Their book criticized Doctor Li’s book and Doctor Li’s personality. They gave their testimony to prove that Doctor Li was unreliable, that his book’s accounts were not true, and that, by contrast, Mao Zedong was a great leader, a hero, a savior of China.
This review will criticize both books, pointing out what I think are the weaknesses of both authors. The main question I believe should be answered is: what material can we use and how can we judge a person who has been very important in world history, who has influenced and still influences so many people in one big nation and around the world?
Assessing the world political leaders: The Role of Personal Memoirs
In assessing the life and work of major world political leaders, whether Joseph Stalin, John F. Kennedy, or Mao Zedong, should a number of standards be followed? Standard scholarly works have examined in detail the social, economic and political forces behind the rise to power and the policies implemented by these leaders. But a different approach has been followed by biographies and personal memoirs of the leaders, which focus on the details of the personal life of the person. These authors seek psychological insights into the thinking of the leaders. They scrutinize personal, biographical aspects that may explain their decision-making. They try to find secret, previously unknown personal strategies, negotiations or relationships between the leaders and others that may have deeply influenced a country.
As such, personal biographies or memoirs complement social science research in the understanding of the leaders and their life, especially those in authoritarian regimes where policy is often deeply influenced by the personal actions of a leader. As Professor Nathan states in the book’s Foreword, “Personal memoirs about great democratic leaders, ..tell us less about history than the biographies of dictators do, because democratic leaders have less room to impose their personalities on events. As for the Chinese tradition, the “basic annals” of each reign record the rituals, portents, alliances, memorials, and enfeoffments that made up emperor’s performance of his role, but they rarely reveal the personalities beneath the robes. ..The combination of access and insight makes the Private Life of Chairman Mao Unique.”
Dr. Li presents a life of “ultimate luxury, simplicity” as Prof. Nathan concluded, a troublesome personal life of Mao. The book asserts that Mao never brushed his teeth, never took a bath himself; worked, talked or called people anytime he needed them (most of the time was after midnight), served by many young people, had young girls as his secretaries and as dancing partners, with no family members staying with him, and was separated with a strange wife---Jiangqing-- who would suddenly appear in front of people and criticized anyone she wished; encircled by his blind loyal or crafty associates; even after he died, his cadaver has been maintained as a modern mummy until now..
Dr. Li’s book shows the fear, scrupulousness, conflicts, and tension in “Emperor Mao’s palace” (his words) where his staff ---the Dr. himself, nurses, bodyguards, cook and so on-- must be very careful of what they did and said, just like the description in the famous novel Dream of the Red Chamber, and also like the old Chinese saying: people who work close to the emperor are just like one is staying beside a tiger. It is a life between life and death, glory and horror.
Dr. Li also emphasized the personal aspects of Mao’s successful or failed strategies to maintain control over the political leadership of the CCP, his likes and dislikes of domestic and world leaders and the sometimes imperious nature of major policy changes he undertook. After reading the book, it is hard not to call Mao a “petty dictator.”
At the same time, there are several serious shortcomings of personal memoirs in providing a serious understanding of world leaders. First of all, there is a question of the reliability of the observer. In social science research, we seek to maintain an unbiased analysis of the subject. But in many biographies and certainly in memoirs, those providing the accounts are not unbiased since they themselves were deeply involved with those being examined. It is therefore difficult to assess the reliability of the information being provided since the point of view of the author can be biased in different ways.
The personal involvement of the author in this book is very clear. Professor Nathan describes the deep personal relationship of Dr. Li: “Nor has any other dictator been as intimately observed as Mao is in this memoir by the man who served as his personal physician for twenty-two years.” The author’s personal animosity, friendship, his lacking of politic knowledge and full information, as he himself described, may influence his observations.
These biases may not necessarily be intentional or conscious. But not only the personal views will influence a personal memoir, there may be influences from the political or ideological biases as well. His book is written from outside China and may be seen as a critique of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). And this is also the main problem with The True Stories in History book, which came out four years after Dr. Li’s book, in 1998. It is based on the testimony of Mao Zedong’s Staff, by Lin Ke (one of Mao’s secretaries), Xu Tao(Mao’s personal doctor from 1953--1957), and Wu Xujun (one of Mao’s nurses ). The authors remain in China and may be seen as responding to political bias or pressures from the party, to prove that Dr Li’s book was not true, that Mao was not a terrible dictator, but a great hero.
The difficulty in assessing the reliability of the conflicting personal accounts in these two books is made more complicated by the lack of transparency in China and the secrecy surrounding Mao and his era. Which of the two accounts presents the real Mao? Dr. Li, for example, presents a side of Mao that no one has seen. Though possibly true, the problem is that this picture is difficult to confirm or corroborate. There are some specific points of dispute in terms of the personal descriptions of Mao by Dr. Li and those by Mao’s staff, such as the semen test, Linke’s hiding document, the arrest of Jiangqing and the Gang of four, why Mao started the anti-Rightness movement and the Culture Revolution but these again are difficult to judge without any corroborating evidence.
Another limitation of personal memoirs in assessing world leaders is that the context within which the persons writing these memoirs operate may exaggerate the personal shortcomings of those being exposed. A personal memoir can focus on the sexual indiscretions of Presidents John F. Kennedy or President Bill Clinton, and this may lead to a view of those leaders as being personally, morally corrupt. Yet, it is also clear that an analysis of the policies undertaken by these same leaders –in their activities as government officials and leaders-- shows very committed, responsible and moral actions in their professional life. In the same vein, the focus of Dr. Li and the other Mao’s staff on his personal life may provide a distorted view of the professional and policy actions he undertook.
Conclusions
Was Mao a petty dictator or not? It is my conclusion that there are too many limitations for us to make a clear judgment right now on the basis of these two books. To judge one person, especially one who had such a tremendous impact on so many people’s fates must wait.
First of all, we must realize that the two books reviewed here are personal memoirs that just cannot be looked at historical documents. There are no corroborating sources and the discussion may be clouded by personal bias or political influences. We cannot judge someone by his private life, such as his sexual life or distasteful personal traits, unless one can document that those were directly connected to important professional decisions made in policy and government or those were an unnecessary waste of public resources. In assessing whether Mao was indeed a “petty dictator,” we would have to consider the broader social, economic and political context of his personal leadership. Where did his economic policies come from, what intellectual influences or ideologies made him adopt the Great Leap Forward, what were the political forces that made him sponsor the Cultural Revolution and so on? These issues are only touched by these books, and the statements made are based on personal recollections that cannot be confirmed.
Secondly, the documentation necessary to resolve some of the conflicting statements in the two books is not available yet. It will have to wait until that time when China becomes more open and transparent. Given the fact that The True Stories in History book does not really contest most of Dr. Li’s observations, we may presume that Dr. Li’s book is correct, but any confirmation must wait.
Having made these criticisms, I also want to emphasize that personal memoirs do have their role in social science analysis. I mentioned this in the introduction and I want to conclude with some thoughts on this. Given the lack of information on Mao’s internal circles, and the extensive propaganda spread by the CCP, Doctor Li’s book, just by portraying a different picture and raising doubts about official versions, makes a big contribution. I believe that in the future, Dr. Li’s accounts of the Mao era may also join other scholarly works in providing a broad perspective on Mao’s period in Chinese history.

References:
Li Zhisui, The Private Life of Chairman Mao--the Memoirs of Mao’s Personal Physician, Translated by Professor Tai Hung-chao, with the editorial assistant of Anne F. Thurston, New York, Random House, 1994.
Li Zhisui, The Memoirs of Mao’s Personal Physician, http://www.boxun.com/hero/mao/23_1.shtml.
Lin Ke, Xu Tao, Wu Xujun, The True Stories in History—the testimony of Mao Zedong’s Stuff, (LIshi De Zhenshi), Beijing, The CCP’s Central Documentary Publishing House,1998.
Andrew Nathan, Jade and Plastic, London review of books, 17 November 2005.

Andrew Nathan, The Bloody Enigma, The New Republic Nov.27 & Dec.4, 2006.

Ross Terrill, Mao: A Biography, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000.
Lirui, Speaking Bluntly (Zhiyan), Lirui’s worry and thinking during 60 years, China Today Publish House, 1998.
Richard Bernstein, The Tyrant Mao, as Told by His Doctor, The New York Times, October 2, 1994.